Michael C. Boosalis, 87, of Richfield , left, talks with Cal Twining, 89, of Inver Grove Heights, as the Viking Chapter of the Merchant Marines holds its next-to-last meeting of the group, at the Legion Club in Richfield, on May 12, 2014. The group will dissolve as fewer and fewer members remain alive or able to make it to the meetings. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Charles W. Meyer of Plymouth, was 17 when he enlisted in the Merchant Marines. Meyerâ€™s wife, Lorraine, continued to come to the monthly meetings after he died in 2011. The Viking Chapter of the Merchant Marines holds its next-to-last meeting of the group, at the Legion Club in Richfield, on May 12, 2014. The group will dissolve as fewer and fewer members remain alive or able to make it to the meetings. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

There will soon be no need for a Vikings Chapter roster, as the Merchant Marines group will dissolve as fewer and fewer members remain alive or able to make it to the meetings. Photographed on 5/12/14 at the Legion Post in Richfield. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

The Viking Chapter of the Merchant Marines says the Pledge of Allegiance to start out their next-to-last meeting of the group, at the Legion Club in Richfield, on May 12, 2014. The group will dissolve as fewer and fewer members remain alive or able to make it to the meetings. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

For a couple of decades, on the second Monday of the month, a group of U.S. Merchant Marine veterans from World War II has met in the back room of the American Legion Club Post 435 in Richfield.

The old seamen come to reminiscence over morning coffee.

But with each passing year, fewer members of the Viking Chapter of the American Merchant Marine Veterans remain. The group has gotten so small that the men, whose average age is 88, have decided to disband.

The men will have one last gathering — a farewell picnic — in June.

“The numbers keep dwindling,” said Roy Freidan, 87, chapter president. “I’ve had so many friends pass away. We have some who are infirm, and they can’t make it.”

“They’re in the rest home or in the cemetery,” said Wally Stelter, 88, of North Mankato.

About 20 years ago, dozens of men would attend the monthly meetings. Now the group is lucky to get five or six.

Cal Twining, who lives in Inver Grove Heights, said he’ll miss swapping war stories with his fellow mariners.

“It was a way for us to remember the past,” said Twining, 89. “Most of us went through the same thing — some worse than others. But there aren’t enough of us anymore. I’m sure the rest of us aren’t too long for this world.”

From 1942 until August 1945, the Iowa native worked on ships that hauled troops, tanks, airplanes and fuel from the United States to ports overseas.

“I quit school to join because they had an ad in the Des Moines Register. I was 17 years old,” Twining said. “It was after Pearl Harbor, so they were wanting young people to come and work and fight. The first ship that I got on was a transport ship taking a load of troops from Long Beach, Calif., all the way to Bombay, India.”

Twining was in the Philippines, unloading ammunition, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. “That was what? August 9?” he said. “I finally got home in October.”

But Twining and the other members of the U.S. Merchant Marine — which was formed in 1936 to carry cargo and serve as a military auxiliary in time of war — weren’t recognized as military veterans by Congress after World War II ended.

The sailors didn’t get G.I. benefits in education, housing, health care or job preference available to other veterans after the war. A federal court ruling in 1988 belatedly awarded veteran status to most World War II mariners and allowed them access to G.I. programs or federally administered medical care and prescriptions by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I was upset, but I got over it. You can’t be mad about it,” said Twining, who flies a Merchant Marine flag and an American flag in his front yard. “We finally got the G.I. bill in 1988. I was 64. I do get to take advantage of the VA medical care. I got my hearing aids from them.”

IGNORED FOR HONORS

What’s most upsetting to Twining is the continued lack of recognition for merchant mariners at Veterans Day celebrations and memorials.

“That’s the thing that has bothered him the most,” said Eleanor Twining, his wife of 65 years. “They honor every other American force except the Merchant Marine.”

Michael Boosalis, 87, of Richfield, is a longtime member of the group. He said he hopes every town that hosts a Memorial Day celebration this weekend will remember the Merchant Marine.

“We wouldn’t have won the war if it wasn’t for the Merchant Marine,” said Boosalis, who uses a walker. “We brought everything over that they needed: trains, airplanes, Jeeps, toilet paper, Coca-Cola, aspirin, cigarettes, beer, munitions, tanks. I was on a tanker that brought gasoline and oil over for (Adm, William) Halsey’s Third Fleet. We carried everything. Everything.”

Walter Holm, of Hudson, Wis., said he once shared a hospital room with a World War II Army veteran who couldn’t believe Holm had been in the Merchant Marine during the war.

“He said: ‘What did you have? A death wish?’ ” Holm said. “We were the supply line. We were the ones who were targeted.”

About 9,500 of the 243,000 mariners were killed during World War II, a death rate of nearly 4 percent, according to mariners’ groups.

Boosalis, a retired millwright, said he is still upset over the lack of recognition he and other mariners received after putting their “lives on the line to defend America’s freedom.”

“When they finally did recognize us, we got some benefits,” he said. “I went to the bank to borrow money to buy my house. I was 61. The banker took one look at me and said, ‘Where have you been?’

“They finally recognized us, but it was too little, too late,” Boosalis said. “We’re all up in our 80s and 90s now.”

Sue Rucker used to be the caregiver for Charles Meyer, a World War II mariner; she and Meyer’s wife, Lorraine, continued to come to the meetings after he died in 2011.

Now, Rucker is on a mission to make sure the merchant mariners who served in World War II are recognized at veterans’ memorials in Minnesota.

“It’s like they didn’t exist,” she said. “They are the unsung heroes of the war. They are passionate about what they did and proud of serving our country, and they just want to be recognized for their dedication and service.”

Many of the men forged documents in order to sign up at a young age; Boosalis, for example, said he “bribed a wino with a case of Muscatel wine to forge the old man’s signature” so he could enlist at 16.

“They had no idea where they were going or when they would be back home,” Rucker said. “A lot of them died.”

‘COLLEGE OF HARD KNOCKS’

Bill Henry, 87, of Forest Lake, said he altered his date of birth — from 1927 to 1925 — in order to sign up.

“To get a job in the shipyard, you had to be 18, so I changed by birth certificate with an old dip pen,” he said. “That’s how I went to sea at 16.”

Henry, a retired commercial painter, said he never expected veterans’ benefits after the war.

“I know a lot of people were bothered we didn’t get them, but I never looked at it that way,” he said. “I sailed for five years. In five years, I was in 33 countries. I figured that was the college of hard knocks. It was worth it, and I never regretted it. I never expected anything. The best blessing of all was when we got VA health care. That’s been great.”

Holm, 87, sailed the North Atlantic, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean during the war.

One of his most memorable trips? Taking a load of German prisoners of war from Marseilles, France, to Baltimore. “Once they got here, they didn’t want to go home, either,” he said. “The young ones were still a little gung-ho; the old ones were glad it was over.”

Trips across the North Atlantic were especially harrowing in the winter, he said.

“If you didn’t get nailed by a sub or a surface raider, then you had the storms to contend with,” he said. “If you got hit or you lost your ship or sunk, you didn’t have much of a chance because the convoy could not stop to pick you up. Your best bet was the last couple of Navy ships that were sweeping the back part of the convoy. You only had five to 10 minutes in the water anyhow, or you’d die of hypothermia.”

But Holm loved his time at sea.

“I even enjoyed the storms,” he said. “I liked it up in the crow’s nest … when I was on lookout and the ship was rolling, and I could reach out and almost touch the top of the waves. Life was good. This was a kid who couldn’t be harmed. We were invulnerable at the age of 17.”

Although the American Legion eventually opened its doors to merchant mariners who served in World War II, the Veterans of Foreign Wars still has not.

“That kind of gripes you a little bit,” Holm said. “We probably saw as much or more combat as many of them saw, and they’re Veterans of Foreign Wars. Well, so are we.”

When President Franklin Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill in June 1944, he said he trusted Congress would soon provide similar opportunities to members of the Merchant Marine, said Cal Oss, 89, of Minneapolis.

After 70 years, Oss, who served in the Merchant Marine from 1943 to 1948, is still waiting for Congress to give mariners full, official recognition for their heroism during the war.

“Most of us are so old, it doesn’t make any difference anymore,” he said, “but we would like the recognition.”

Mary Divine is a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She covers Washington County and the St. Croix River Valley, but has also spent time covering the state Capitol. She has won numerous journalism awards, including the Premack Award and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists' Page One Award. Prior to joining the Pioneer Press in 1998, she worked for the Rochester, Minn., Post-Bulletin and at the St. Joseph, Mo., News-Press. Her work has also appeared in a number of magazines, including Mpls/St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Business Monthly and Minnesota Magazine. She is a graduate of Carleton College and lives in St. Paul with her husband, Greg Myers, and their three children, Henry, 15, Frances, 13, and Fred, 10.

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